Where have I been? I would like to simply say “lol stuck in alligator” and then move on, but alas I wasn’t. Unlike this 62 year old scuba diving golf-ball collector But really, after taunting the things for 14 years and not getting a CONSIDERABLY better job, is it any wonder his reptile nemesis finally decided to have a taste?

Previously I was going to update with a long-winded angsty analogy about my creative process being a series of interlinked pipes and taps, but you’ve been spared that horror, loyal luckettopians. Basically I’ve been stuck in a horrible rut of ambivalence over my own personal projects, and not knowing what to do next.

So in true Luckettopia tradition, I decided to personify this period as a great big honkin’ albino alligator lurkin’ in the lakes. This is the second horrid beastie that the island has had to face; the first of course being the dreaded Cintiq-King.

Lets hope I never spend time within its ominous belly ever again.

Should have updated a week ago, but I always feel bad about posting without a visual treat for you loyal Luckettopians! I will have to cook something special up (by cook, I obviously mean…draw) for you all shortly!

Alright luvs! Sorry I’ve been a bit ‘internet quiet’ but I had some troubles which involved “not getting paid” and “getting very cross about it”. But that is almost all over now, so I have to find new things to get angry about for you! Well aren’t you just in luck, because today I discovered that had I entered the Xbox Live Original Pilot Competition, the above comic is the history this world would have recorded if anyone survived my exploding fury!

Right, so basically right, I was going to enter the New York Television Festival Xbox LIVE Originals Contest (warning, page has an annoying looping video demo that you can’t stop, hurrah for irritating web-design decisions!!), because getting Waffle X onto a network and getting paid $100,000 (£50,000) to make a 6 episode series appealed to me. Obviously. So to be honest that was the main driving force behind creating a full pilot version of Waffle X, stitching Episode 1 and 2 together with added linking bits, to submit to this competition. I was psyched, a gaming orientated comedy animation seemed perfectly suited to being shown on Xbox Live. I went through the usual egomania of “I’ve definitely won. Now how to spend that 50k…”. But, as with all things, there was a catch.

I say “a catch”, but rather an entire legal document of catches. Have a read of the PDF Entry Packet here, but I’ll highlight the choice phrases that made me raise a Roger Moore-esque eyebrow to:

- NYTVF and the Designated Entities shall have the perpetual and exclusive right to exhibit, disseminate, or broadcast each entry (and any portion(s) or element(s) thereof) in any manner, media or format now known or hereafter devised, throughout the universe.

- Each entrant acknowledges and agrees, that by entering, NYTVF and/or the Designated Entities shall exclusively and perpetually own the copyright in the entry and shall be entitled to exploit any or all entries (or any portions or elements thereof) and that no payment or consideration of any kind or nature shall be due to any such entrant.

So yeah. I didn’t enter. The idea of signing over any and all right to my creation when they’ve underlined legally they want to exploit and not pay me for it, and then bind the whole thing up so tightly in legal bullshit that i can’t even travel lightyears to ANOTHER GALAXY to pitch it to warbling alien execs, is ridiculous. So time passed, and slightly dejected I released Episode 2 anyway still waiting for my big break. Until yesterday when I decided to satisfy my horrible HORRIBLE curiosity and find out who won.

A show called Bouchedags. I’m going to link the whole thing below, but really I have to warn you. Its 17 minutes long, and its essentially a form of torture. See how far you get through, and let me know. Its the most unfunny piece of shit I have ever watched in my entire life.

Even the thumbnail communicates what you’re in for. Unfunny fraternity americans sitting around making awful sketches about “punching retarded girlfriends in the face” and an entire minute of fart jokes. So I became angry about how theoretically angry I would have been, had I entered the contest, signed away all ownership of Waffle X forever throughout the cosmos, and then got beaten by this HORSESHIT anyway. Hence the comic. I would have destroyed this world, and you would have thanked me for it.

Now lets see if I can update this blog more regularly without needing to be monumentally angry!

Finally got around to finishing the stitched together Waffle X Pilot (consisting of Episode 1 and 2 with new ADDED BITS) and put it up onto youtube. Link it across the interwebs far and wide please. Leave no forum unbranded by your whoring might!

Have been a bit under the weather recently with SUMMER ILLS, but hope to be back to my ranty productive self soon enough! Just began a little work on WAFFLE X: EPISODE THREE today *gasp*, so we will see if I can finish that before 2008 comes a knockin’ with its spiky metal fists and stern glare ;____;

Photo from my birthday weekend in Norwich. I dont wine and dine the girlfriend so much as beer and burger her XD Pic was taken by Rachel’s friend, Louise, who makes awesome plushies over yonder.

I am mega-busy at the moment as I started a freelance Flash production job at a games company in London. Which has meant commuting every day and not having much spare time at all! Rarrrgh, trains!

The reception to Waffle X: EPISODE TWO was a bit more muted than I expected, with Deviantart reacting to it a lot more favourably than Newgroundsthis time around! Will have to get the full pilot video version up soon to Myspace and Youtube for COMPLETE ONLINE MEDIA PENETRATION O_____O

Might upload some sketches of random side-projects I’ve had in mind for months but done nothing with, sometime this week. Just so I can point to them online when one day they inevitably get done by someone else and I scream paranoically about microscopic creative spy-drones following everything I output!

Its out, oh god finally its out. So sorry about all the delays, but back and forth on some final dialogue audio and my new freelance project and other excellent important sounding excuses are to blame :P

Get it from a multitude of places:

Newgrounds Click de 5 Vote to make me happies

WaffleX.com Home sweet rarely updated home!

Yeah so I am currently doing some freelance flash work for a games company in london, and that is CRAZY BUSY DEADLINE at the moment, and commuting is horrendous. Then its my birthday on the 6th, and that will hopefully be happy smiley day off of work and fun times and presents and fings ^_____^

Ooh nifty, I quite like DeviantArt’s ’share’ option then, if it lets me do clever things like this! So yes, work on Episode 2 continues apace and I like to show bits and pieces of it so it doesnt seem so much like a mythical promise of an animation!

This weekend I’m off to Rachel’s in Liverpool as its her birthday, but hopefully when I get back its the finishing run on the episode with audio and flash nonsense since mostly all the animation assets are complete. Also, looks like it’s getting an impromptu preview showing at a funky gig day, Dance Like on Saturday 26th May, in Chelmsford at The Golden Fleece. This is of course dependant on 3 things:

1. The DVD arrives on time via Royal Mail.
2. They actually decide to use and show it.
3. The planets and stars are aligned so both of the above happen in unison.

If it does get shown, its a DVD version of Episode One, with an Episode Two preview consisting of the first 2 minutes and 30 seconds! Exciting stuff, and of course I won’t be there to see it XD But hey, if any of you are in the area and want a funky day of mixed music and cool peoples, pop along!

Behold the Gurren Lagann inspired Waffle X mecha, Waffuru Havaar X1!!! Gurren Lagann is a new mecha anime from Gainax, the animation kings behind FLCL and much more. Its pretty nifty, thus inspirational mecha doodle-sketch! I don’t normally like mecha anime, especially if they end with philosophical psychobabble, but this is light hearted goofy explosive fun so give it a whirl.

Something that isn’t nifty is how i keep neglecting to update this site. I don’t want to field the usual excuses, but I guess I always get conflicted over whether I should treat this site as a personal blogging space or not, since I also use it as a portfolio to show prospective clients/employers. But I think I’ve finally decided to hell with being reserved and sporadic, if you hire me you’re gonna witness my awe-inspiring rambling at some point, so consider this site as a window to everything that I am and a toe dip into the shallow end of my madness.

I’ve been pretty busy for someone thats unemployed, with a job interview here and there and prospective projects on the horizon. I’ve also started seeing a scouser named Rachel, whom I’m sure I will now mention more now we are OPEN and HONEST with each other, right best buddy reader person?! Oshit, relationship?!??!!? This has involved me being a bit sickeningly mushy around friends, but it is okay internets! I can still enact my usual anarchic brand of bitterness and fury just for you.

Episode 2 of Waffle X is all but finished, animation-wise. Just the time consuming annoying bits like importing everything into Flash, lip-syncing and timing to do amidst the strange amount of birthdays people seem to be having at this time of year. Right, so more updates, and from now on they might get impossibly inane like “what I had for dinner today” and “dont you just hate bee’s?”.

Burnout Dominator on the PSP is really rather delicious portable fun. The Burnout series is the only car racing game I enjoy since it’s focus is on going really fast and smashing other cars into slow motion revolving oblivion, not tweaking chassis percentages for 3 hours before I get to do 40 circle laps of “accurate lifelike simulation!!!”. It makes perfect sense for a portable as well, quick bouts of Road Rage matches and races in between all menial daily tasks. But, there is a combination here, one so sinister twisted and evil it has corrupted my very being.

All Burnout games since Burnout 3 have featured “EA TRAX”, a smattering of punky rock and licensed music. The same has occurred, and much to my chagrin there is no Custom Soundtrack option in this PSP version. Fair enough, but… Avril Lavigne’s new single “Girlfriend” is part of this selection. But, not only is it on there once, indeed (in the US release at least) it is there 4 GOD DAMN TIMES. English, Spanish, Japanese and…wait for it….MANDARIN VERSIONS. Because I thought it would be funny to switch them all to active to hear the punky warbles in foreign tongues while hurtling into oncoming rush hour traffic at 300mph, I didn’t stop to think about the detrimental effect this would have on my already flaky sanity. THE SONG WILL NOT LEAVE MY MIND O__________O

Oh and Episode 2 is getting closer to being done. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

“Ever since the Shadow Moses Incident, Metal Gear Rex variants have been popping up all over the globe. Thanks to Ocelot selling the technical specs on the black market!”

A robot straight after a girly? My my, we are following artist guidelines to a tee! Anyway yes, this is the sort of thing I randomly think of and sketch instead of doing other worthwhile stuffs. But never fear! I’m actually making some heady progress with Waffle X Episode Two after some revisions to the episode format. Also been tinkering with the newer Flash 8 I’ve just got! Ooh it has blur and glow effects oooh and aaaah! I want this episode out by March at the very latest. So wish me luck!

I’ve also recently obtained a Ceramic White Playstation Portable Giga Pack in a great deal off of ebay. Finally enjoying the backlist of stuff I’ve had my eye on for aeons.

Me & My Katamari , Loco Roco , MGS: Digital Graphic Novel , DBZ Shin Budokai .

Sony should definitely price drop the sleek sucker soon, as I was never willing to pay the current price, hence ebay scouring and retrieval! I like the DS as well, but man alive. Essentially a handheld portable with the power of the ps2 is pretty awe inspiring. Hope the thing starts getting more original and unique content as developers make the switch from PS2 to PS3. Which, as I’m sure you’re all lolworthily aware of, will be retailing for £425 over here in the UK in March. Good lord.